Evaluation of caraway essential oil from different production areas of Serbia

Abstract

Caraway fruits contain essential oils that give caraway its characteristic aroma. This paper evaluates quantity and composition of the essential oil from the annual caraway grown in different production areas of Serbia. Experiments were conducted in three production areas: Banat, Bačka and Srem, during two years. The fruits contained 3.95% of oil on average. The highest content of essential oil was obtained in the production area of Banat, a part of Serbia where environmental conditions are very favourable for cultivation of medicinal plants. Weather conditions have not a significant influence on the content of essential oil in caraway fruits. However, weather conditions as well as production region had a great influence on seed yield and essential oil yield. There were 22 compounds determined in caraway essential oil by GC/MS. The main components were carvone and limonene, whose mixture constituted from 97.69 to 98.62% of total oil composition. Carvone/limonene ratio was 0.58% on average, therefore, it can be concluded that this annual caraway belongs to limonene chemotype.

Method for Attaining Caraway Seed Oil Fractions with Different Composition

“…The concentration of myrcene in our study was between 0.157 and 0.717% which was within the range (0.1 – 1%) reported by . trans ‐Carveol and β ‐caryophyllene content in essential oil of caraway usually range from 0 to 0.2% and from 0 to 0.3%, respectively , which was similar to what we obtained in the non‐stop 135 min HDT (control) treatment ( trans ‐carveol: 0.137% and β ‐caryophyllene: 0.16%), but the concentrations of trans ‐carveol (0.067 – 0.387%) and β ‐caryophyllene (0.07 – 0.237%) were out of range. Collecting oil at each HDT frames can be accounted for trans ‐carveol and β ‐caryophyllene for not falling in range previously reported by .…”

“…The mean oil yields for different HDT fractions were in the range of 0.049 – 0.405 g/200 g of seed. The overall oil content in our study in the non‐stop HDT treatment was 2.76% in dry seed, which was similar to that reported previously . However, the above reports utilized whole seed and 4 – 12 h of hydrodistillation time, whereas in this study we used crushed caraway seed.…”

The influence of environmental conditions on Carum carvi L. var. annum seed quality

“…In our previous study, we concluded that in the same weight of caraway seeds (100 g) accumulate more essential oil in dry and hot 2012 year (4.12%), in comparison to moderate 2011 (3.78%), but this difference wasn't statistical significant (Acimovic et al 2014). Other authors also pointed that stress cause increasing in essential oil content (Abdelmajeed et al 2013).…”

Chemical Structure, Quality Indices and Bioactivity of Essential Oil Constituents

“…The main components of caraway essential oil are carvone and limonene, whose mixture constituted from 97.69 to 98.62% of total oil composition [76]. The overall quality of fruits is considered to correlate with the content of essential oil and its carvone/limonene (C/L) ratio: the higher the ratio, the better the quality.…”

“…Limonene is of high level in green immature seeds [79]. Aćimović et al [76] considered the quality of essential oil poor when C/L ratio recorded 0.47. The essential oil of biennial caraway varieties usually has a higher C/L ratio compared to that of the annual varieties [80,81].…”